


it started with a hug

by HerDiamonds



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Green Arrow and the Canaries (TV)
Genre: F/F, Hug Fic, Soft af, ends soft of course y'all, kinda angsty bc thats my brand, laurel lance needs a fucking hug, she’s also touch starved whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24421708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerDiamonds/pseuds/HerDiamonds
Summary: It started with a hug.Or more so, Laurel running full force at her, crashing into her and wrapping her arms so tightly around Dinah’s body, she thought she wouldn’t be able to breathe anymore.orthe one where Laurel refuses to let Dinah go after almost losing her...
Relationships: Dinah Drake/Earth-2 Laurel Lance
Comments: 12
Kudos: 69





	it started with a hug

**Author's Note:**

> hi! I cried writing this! 
> 
> shout out to the fuck m*rc gaggenheim gc peeps I love y’all so much this is dedicated to you for our lovely ladies we scream about 23/7 (one hr allotted for snack breaks).
> 
> anyway, hope you enjoy! 
> 
> ps. sorry I haven’t done dinahsirenweek im very not inspired most of the time for those and it makes me sad but I don’t want to force a fic and it come out crappy just to have written one… so y’all can have this instead!

It started with a hug.

Or more so, Laurel running full force at her, crashing into her and wrapping her arms so tightly around Dinah’s body, she thought she wouldn’t be able to breathe anymore.

She had been held captive for days, presumed dead by every else, _probably,_ because she was a nobody. She felt as if no one really cared about her. She had no idea why Trevor would even want _her._ She wasn’t even wanted in this town, fled it even and then woke up in a different year and her whole existence had been erased. _Why had she been taken?_

Dinah had no idea why Laurel, someone she assumed still hated her, even though she sleeps on her couch every night, was holding onto her like her life had depended on it.

Laurel chokes back a sob. She hears the “ _I–I’m here, I’m alive._ ” Through the other end of the phone. She, and Mia, William and Bianca of course, had finally tracked down a number for Trevor who had been holding Dinah captive. She was trying to stall him so William could get the trace on the phone and find out where exactly she was. It had been _three days._ Three agonizingly long days. And she demanded proof of life.

And then Dinah’s raspy voice, beautiful as ever, floated weakly through the speaker of the phone.

“ _I–I’m here, I’m alive._ ”

And she has to choke back a sob. She has to stay strong. She couldn’t break down, not right now. Not yet. She needed to keep them talking, William almost had a trace on the phone.

“Good, that’s really good, D. I’m so glad to hear your voice.” She manages. The tears are stinging her eyes so badly and she can barely hold them back. She doesn’t know if she can trust her voice to say another word at this point, but she doesn’t get the chance when she hears a loud snap and a scream, _Dinah’s_ scream, of agony, of pain. She’s hurt.

And Laurel’s going to kill Trevor when she gets her hands on him. After Dinah is back, safely, of course.

“I got her.” She hears William whisper before she has a chance to reply on the other end of the phone.

“D, hold on.” She says softly, she’s not sure if Dinah could hear it, but she prays to whatever gods out there that Dinah would be alright. That she would hold on until she got to her. “Please.” She begs.

And they do get to her. Chained up in the dark warehouse. She’s lying on the floor in a heap, bruises and dried blood mottling her gorgeously tanned skin. Clothes ripped and cuts across her body. There’s a power dampening collar around her neck and Laurel freezes as she steps into the room.

The air around her is thick and she feels like she can barely breathe. She feels like someone is strangling her and sucking the air out of her as she sees Dinah’s bruised body lying there, like a piece of discarded trash, broken and bloodied.

She feels like she’s going to throw up as she watches Dinah struggle to sit up, hearing people in the room.

Laurel feels her body lurch forward, her feet moving faster than she thinks they’ve ever moved before and she’s crossing the large warehouse floor in no time, dropping to her knees on the hardened concrete and colliding into Dinah’s body, hugging her, holding her close, afraid to let go.

She doesn’t know what came over her. She doesn’t think she’s _ever_ hugged Dinah before. The last person she had hugged was Quentin, at Oliver’s funeral, months ago.

She wasn’t a hugger.

She wasn’t a touchy person at all.

She pretty much avoided people hugging or touching her to begin with.

She doesn’t know what came over her.

But she refuses to let go. And oddly enough, a sob wracks through her body as she sits there, holding Dinah’s fragile, weakened body in her arms. She squeezes her tighter and Dinah hisses, but Laurel doesn’t let her go.

“I–I thought I’d lost you.” She whispers, pushing a lock of Dinah’s hair away from her face. She needs to look into her eyes again, reassure herself that Dinah _is_ here, that she _is_ alive, that she’ll _be_ _okay._

“D–Didn’t know you cared so much.” Dinah croaks out. It’s barely a whisper, and Laurel barely hears it, but she does.

And then it’s quiet again as Mia and Bianca close in on them, helping her unlock Dinah from the cuffs and free her of the dampening collar. The three of them help Dinah to her feet as she’s barely able to stand before Laurel uses all of her strength and sweeps Dinah into her arms, bridal style and slowly makes her way across the warehouse and outside where they would be picked up.

“You two take care of Trevor and the rest of them?” Laurel asks once they’re seated inside the van and Dinah’s seated securely next to her, half–conscious lying across her haphazardly.

“Trevor wasn’t there at all. This apparently wasn’t his endgame, merely a game for now. We still don’t know what he wants but he’s hiding something according to one of his henchmen we tangled up with.” Bianca informs her as they speed back to Dinah’s bar and loft.

It’s later that night when Dinah’s actually sound asleep on the couch, when Laurel finds herself not being able to leave, to let go.

She had carried Dinah to the apartment and laid her down on the couch, knowing they both wouldn’t be able to make it up the spiral staircase at that moment, so she’d opted to place her on the couch.

And then tended to her every wound.

She’d sent the younger girls and William home not too long after, promising to update them on how Dinah was doing. But she could handle it from there, no problem.

So they left her, tending to Dinah’s injuries as the doors to the elevator slid closed.

Laurel’s kneeling on the floor next to the couch as she drags the damp, lukewarm cloth across Dinah’s body, cleaning up the traces of dried blood and accumulated dirt from being on the floor for days. She wipes it all away, careful of the purpling bruises littering Dinah’s skin.

She hated it. She hated the pain he had caused Dinah, caused them, caused _her._

Dinah winces every so often until she’s through. She manages to sloppily stitch up the two deeper wounds the woman has, and bandages everything else up. There’s a pretty deep laceration on her right clavicle that Laurel knows is going to leave a scar, especially with her suture skills. But she manages, and soon enough there’s clean gauze covering too much of Dinah’s body and it makes her feel sick.

“I’m going to order something. Is Pho okay? You need to eat but I don’t want to put too much on your stomach after all this.” She says quietly.

Dinah hums and nods in response.

Laurel doesn’t get up but merely reaches over onto the coffee table and grabs her phone. She absentmindedly rests her hand on Dinah’s shoulder as she dials the number for their order.

It arrives a while later and she has to do everything to pry herself off the floor and away from a now sleeping Dinah to answer the door. She pays and turns around, grabbing two spoons from the kitchen and taking their order back to the couch and coffee table.

She sits on the far end of the couch with one of the orders of soup, letting Dinah’s feet rest against her thigh as she watches her sleep. And its peaceful. And she’s happy that Dinah is back where she belonged.

She refuses to leave Dinah’s side. Too freaked out about losing her again and she refuses to let Dinah, or anyone else for that matter, see that it bothers her.

Dinah calls her out on it after she’s stayed up for three days straight.

It had finally clicked with Dinah that Laurel hadn’t slept since she’d returned. She had assumed since she couldn’t make it up the stairs, Laurel had just taken her bed during the night. But after having slept through the first two days of being home, the third night she woke up in the way early hours of the morning to find Laurel sitting at the far end of the couch, her thighs pressed firmly against the bottom of Dinah’s feet, scrolling through her phone and drinking an energy drink.

“Why aren’t you asleep?”

“You’re in my bed.” Laurel deadpans without even looking up.

She refuses to. She knows if she looks at Dinah, Dinah will see right through her façade and she isn’t ready to unpack that…yet.

“You know damn well you could’ve slept in my bed.” Dinah fires back.

Laurel knows it. She’d slept in Dinah’s bed the full three days she’d went missing.

That was a lie. She didn’t sleep the first two days and only slept for a few hours on the third day after Mia had forced her to. But she couldn’t sleep on the couch. Not without knowing Dinah wasn’t there. She needed to feel like Dinah was close so she’d curled up on Dinah’s bed, on top of the covers and everything before passing out in pure exhaustion minutes later and sleeping for a solid four hours before Mia had called her about getting a number on Trevor.

“No. Who knows when you last washed your sheets.” She deflects, finally looking across the couch at Dinah.

She rests her phone in her lap and her hand on the top of one of Dinah’s feet against her thigh.

Dinah sees the heavy bags under Laurel’s eyes and it breaks her.

That’s when it hits her that Laurel had barely been able to sleep.

She refuses to acknowledge it means more than Laurel being a caring friend. She refuses to let herself believe it could be something more. Laurel couldn’t like her–– _love_ her.

“You need to sleep, you look tired.” She says softly and Laurel rolls her eyes.

“Thanks.” She scoffs.

Neither of them says anything else after that, content to sit in silence, listening as the early morning traffic starts to pick up and soon the sun is rising and birds start chirping as they sit on the couch, Laurel to drawing circles on the top of Dinah’s foot as she absentmindedly scrolls through her phone again.

Dinah fights sleep again, but her body needs it and the soothing feeling of Laurel’s touch on her foot lulls her to sleep as her eyes drift shut.

Laurel absolutely refuses to do any more work on finding Trevor that involves her leaving the lofty apartment. She does a few things from her end at the apartment, but the bar downstairs is as far as she allows herself, and now Dinah, to go. She’s managed to sleep for a few hours the past two days now. Dinah isn’t strong enough to tackle the stairs, so she’s still on the couch and Laurel still refuses to leave her side. She ended up passing out from pure exhaustion, slumped in a sitting position on the end of the couch with Dinah’s feet across her lap, a position they’d become familiar and comfortable with in the past few days.

Dinah was able to walk now though, with just a little help. She was gaining back strength by that fifth day and insisted on going down to the bar to just sit and play at the piano, itching to play another tune. She begged Laurel to help her down and with just one look, Laurel gave in of course. She’d walk through fire or to the ends of the earth for the other woman, but she wouldn’t let Dinah know that…not yet.

Laurel helps her slide onto the bench seat of the piano and then raises a brow to her as the blonde scoots herself onto the bench, pressing their thighs up against each other.

She thinks she can feel the faint touch of Laurel’s hand on her back, right above her butt as Laurel’s hand rests on the bench behind them to steady herself, but she’s not sure.

She focuses back in front of her, letting her fingers glide across the keys and a melody flows into the air.

“Teach me.” Laurel asks quietly. Her breath is hot against Dinah’s neck as she’d leaned over to ask the brunette.

And Dinah does. She places Laurel’s hands over a few keys and tries to teach her a few notes to the beginning of _Sunny,_ but Laurel’s an absolute disaster at playing the piano. She finally can’t take it anymore, and stops her, prying her hands off the piano as Laurel resists a bit in mock play, trying to jab at the keys and Dinah starts to erupt in laughs, soon followed by coughs and groans at the pain in her ribs.

Laurel immediately stops her actions and relinquishes her faux–fight for the piano and shoves her hands down, one resting on her thigh, one resting on Dinah’s.

Dinah ignores the burning touch of Laurel’s palm on her thigh as she drifts in to playing _Sunny_ once again, letting the words take her away.

Later on that night William and the girls come over to work on things with them and Laurel tries hard to separate herself from Dinah, to not make it obvious. But she thinks Dinah’s started seeing through her now. Ever since Dinah had caught her awake on the couch, she thinks Dinah had realized it.

Hell, she barely realized it herself.

She just can’t let Dinah out of her grasp, out of her sight. Not again.

She’d lost her and had to time travel twenty years in the future to find her the first time.

The second time––it made her sick to think about a first time, let alone a _second_ ––she sped across the city in the van and tore through three abandoned warehouses before she’d found Dinah again.

She refuses to let it happen a third time. 

Dinah does notice.

Of course she notices.

Laurel refuses to sleep. She always seems to be touching her in some capacity. And her eyes never leave Dinah for a second. She’s sure Laurel would’ve followed her into the bathroom if she’d let her, to be honest.

She still refuses to accept what this all could _possibly_ mean. Because it absolutely couldn’t mean _that,_ could it? _No._ Of course not.

But she’s not mad about the affection and care.

She quite likes it, actually. Not that she would ever admit that out loud. And she understands why Laurel is doing it. She doesn’t want to admit it to herself, because that would mean it meant something more, but she knows it’s because Laurel is scared of losing her again, so she needs to be near her, touching her in fear of her slipping away again.

So, what if Dinah makes it a point to always be closer to her?

So, what if she wants to be in close proximity to Laurel like that?

So, what if she likes the way it feels to have Laurel’s hand on her thigh or on her back? Or the way her thigh pressed up against her own? Or the way the front side of Laurel’s body is pressed up against her own as she stands slightly behind her and she can feel Laurel’s hot breath on the back of her neck, sending chills down her spine and igniting a fire within her?

The evening progresses on and Dinah makes sure to take the seat on couch, squishing in next to Laurel as their thighs touch. She feels the tension in Laurel’s body release as soon as she presses up next to her as Laurel lifts the slice of pizza to her mouth. Dinah watches contently as she eats her food and she just rests a hand on top of Laurel’s thigh, content on listening to whatever Mia and Bianca were chatting about.

It’s when the younger three leave late in the night, way after the sun has set and the bustling of traffic outside has ceased, when Dinah looks up at the spiral staircase.

“Help me. I want to sleep in my own bed tonight. Also because you need to sleep too.” She says, more so demands.

Laurel looks up from the couch, seeing Dinah at the bottom of the staircase.

“You sure you’re strong enough?”

“Need I remind you how I can kick your ass once I’m completely healed?” Dinah fires back. There’s no malice in her voice, but a playful smirk on her lips and a daring look in her eyes.

Laurel rolls her eyes and stands up from the couch.

Dinah waits until Laurel’s right behind her before she takes each side of the railing in her hands and slowly, carefully walks up them, one step at a time. Laurel’s pressed right up against her, one step behind her, steadying her, making sure she doesn’t fall.

It’s an agonizingly long trip up, but she makes it. And Dinah’s never been so happy to see her bed in her entire life. She carefully makes her way over to it and lays down relishing in its comfort.

Laurel awkwardly stands at the edge of the stairs, staring at Dinah on her bed.

“Well, uh, night. Just uh–yell for me if you need to go down and use the bathroom or something.”

She turns to leave but Dinah’s voice stops her.

“Stay.” It’s quiet, so quiet Dinah’s not sure if she said it loud enough out of fear Laurel would outright reject her offer. And then more words are spilling from her lips. “I know you need to be able to touch me. I–I’ve noticed. I don’t know if you actually realize it, but you haven’t been able to be more than like a half foot away from me.”

Laurel swallows.

“I––”

“It’s okay.” Dinah reassures her. “Stay. I want you to stay.”

So Laurel does. She crosses the room and crouches to sit on the floor but as soon as she bends to sit Dinah stumbles over her words.

“Laurel, are you _serious?_ I meant in _bed._ We are adults, you can sleep up here with me you idiot.” She say, and laughs. Actually laughs.

And it’s music to Laurel’s ears.

So she straightens up and slides onto the bed, staying as close to the edge as possible, giving Dinah plenty of space on the queen sized bed.

Dinah rolls her eyes and takes it upon herself, scooting as close to Laurel as possible, firmly grabbing Laurel’s arm and wrapping it around herself, sinking into Laurel’s embrace. It only takes a second before the firmness of Laurel’s embrace softens and she relaxes, letting her fingertips press into Dinah’s back as she curls Dinah into her further.

She needed this. She needed to know, needed to _feel_ that Dinah was here with her.

And she knows, by the way Dinah’s staring into her eyes now, she can see the look of pure love in her eyes, that Dinah just might feel the same way she’s been feeling since she arrived in 2040. The look in Dinah’s eyes that she’s seen before, back when they’d first locked eyes at the bar and she refused to get her hopes up. The look she’d seen any time she locked eyes with Dinah across a room. The look she’d given Dinah as she ran to her across that warehouse and fell to her knees to hold the woman.

Dinah pushes a lock of Laurel’s hair away from her eyes and watches as Laurel stares back at her like she’d hung the stars and moon above them.

She’d tell Laurel about how she felt in the morning.

And for the first time, she watches as Laurel willingly lets her eyes fall shut, drifting into a peaceful sleep, knowing that Dinah is tucked safely in her arms.

**Author's Note:**

> come fangirl with me on twitter about the gays at @gayvasharpe


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